Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders have agreed to Malaysia's call for member economies to coordinate their fiscal stimulus packages to increase spending in efforts to haul the global economy out of the crippling recession.
"APEC leaders decided that the fiscal stimulus in the form of an expansionary budget is necessary to save the world from sliding into recession," Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Mohd Najib Razak told Malaysian journalists after the first day of the two-day leaders' summit here.
"We must restore confidence in our economies," he said.
This is the first time that APEC leaders dedicated the entire first day of the two-day summit, hosted by Peruvian President Alan Garcia for discussing the global economic crisis.
Najib said that economies, both APEC and non-APEC, must get their act together to prevent the global economy from slipping into recession.
"They cannot be complacent, they must resort to expansionary means to save the world," he said, adding that each country must embark on a fiscal stimulus in a co-coordinated fashion and ascertain the amount of injection that is required.
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Among countries, which have instituted comprehensive stimulus packages are China, which implemented a package worth $750 billion, but credit from the proposed $600 billion package by the United States is slow in coming.
For Bretton Woods institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, Najib said they must play the role of providing the liquidity via short-term capital to certain countries facing balance of payments problem.